大象传媒

Escape from Singapore 鈥� 1941/42 鈥� William Leonard Midford

This document is a typed transcript of a letter written by William Leonard Midford to his father on the 5th of August 1942 describing his escape from Singapore and subsequent adventures.

Melbourne . 5th Aug., 1942
My dear Dad, - Thanks for your letter of 29th May which arrived today. I have been meaning for a long time to write and give you an account of the events of recent months, but keep on putting it off. As you know I was never a good correspondent. However, I know that Norah has kept you posted from time to time - - - -
Pending a decision by the Colonial Office as to what they propose to do with me, I continue to draw my normal salary from funds belonging to the Malayan Govt. I am, however, negotiating for a commission in the Royal Australian Engineers which would mean my remaining in this country for the duration, but I am still waiting to hear whether the C.O. will release me for this purpose. If not I presume I shall be sent to some other part of the world to which I should probably not be able to take the family.
As you no doubt can guess I have had great good fortune in the last few months 鈥� in fact, have hardly any right to be still alive and out of the clutches of the Japanese, though nearly all my friends are either dead or languishing in some Jap. prison camp. It would be much too long a story to give you in detail in any one letter but I will try to give you an outline of events since the Jap. war began.
I was wakened by the telephone ringing at 3.0, a.m., on the morning of 8th Dec. to be told that the Japs had landed further north and that a landing at Mersing was expected hourly. I packed Norah and Hester into the car with a suitcase each and sent them about 60 miles inland to Kota Tinggi. They arrived before dawn. I then had to put into operation the defence measures for which I was responsible 鈥� mainly the denial of ? to the enemy and the destruction of water supplies, pipe lines, bridges, etc. Within 5 days I had fallen back to Kota Tinggi and operated from there since the town of Mersing was destroyed by the military. I remained in Kota Tinggi until ordered to withdraw south of the Causeway on the 29th Jan. In the meantime the systematic bombing of Singapore began and from the house in Kota Tinggi we could count every bomber on its way to Singapore and on the return journey. As Kota Tinggi was rather lonely and isolated I sent Norah and Hester to live in a boarding house just outside the city but after a week or two I found they were suffering lack of sleep 鈥� getting out to the air-raid trenches 3 or 4 times a night - and brought them back to Kota Tinggi. As things began to get worse I began to think it was time to send them out of the country and finally on 16th Jan. I got them on board a ship leaving for Australia. They had mattresses only on the floor of the dining saloon and the ship was packed with 100鈥檚 of women and children. However, they were fortunate because the next day the docks were bombed and the adjacent godowns set on fire. Norah was able to take clothes with her and also the sewing machine.
From that time onwards things got progressively worse and I began to see the writing on the wall. I was given a commission with rank of captain in the Straits Settlements Volunteers but had to carry on with the special duties which were necessitated by the state of emergency. Then all our Chinese servants began to fade away and existence began to get somewhat hand to mouth. Coming back to an empty house after a strenuous day only to start cooking something to eat was awkward but after a while no food was obtainable since the shops and markets became abandoned. So I had to go across to the officer鈥檚 mess of the Australian military unit to get enough to eat. At midnight on 28th Jan. I was called out of bed by an Australian officer with instructions to be south of the Causeway by 6 p.m. next day and I knew the worst was coming. As I had to close up my office and pay off all my staff etc and get all my transport out with as much stores as could be loaded in one day I had a full day on the 29th. I shot my dog and left him in the back garden and with 2 suitcases filled with some clothes and some tinned food I drove in my car down to the causeway that evening. Parties of Military Engineers were putting the final touches to the demolition charges while hundreds of tired and worn out troops poured across into Singapore Island. It was a terrible scene and a sad exit to 15 years of work in British Malaya. I reported to H.Q. P.W.D and was posted as an attached officer to an Australian Field Park(?) Coy(?) of Engineers under canvas about 10 miles north of Singapore and 6 miles south of the Causeway. The job consisted of constructing strategic defences as quickly as possible on the north-west corner of the island. I was here until about the 9th Feb. when the Jap. artillery began to shell our positions and drove us off the work. Then the whole of my labour force of 600 hundred men melted away and that was that. I was told to report back to Singapore and await further orders which never came. Thus for the next 4 days I was wandering about more or less at a loose end together with all the other engineers of the Department. It was not a pleasant period with bombs falling constantly all over the place and spasmodic shelling from long range guns. The agony of the Lion City in those last days was terrible especially when the streets began to be filled by disorganised soldiery while the dead and dying littered the streets. By the evening of the 11th I had began to resign myself to the loss of the city and to being captured by the Japs. The Governor had consistently refused to allow anyone including civilians to leave but apparently on the 13th he changed his mind and decided that there were a lot of essential personnel who would be more useful elsewhere than in a Japanese concentration camp. Among the 鈥渆ssential personnel鈥� were included all the Engineer Staff of the Public Works Dept. and at 3p.m. on Friday the 13th we all received orders to assemble at one of the wharves where we would board a ship for Java and report for duty to the Dutch Govt. I raced down to the wharf in my car with a single suitcase of clothing and my shotgun (the one you gave me). Owing to obvious bungling on the part of the Naval men in charge of the embarkation we stood on that wharf until 6p.m. when the whole party of about 500 people including about 200 women (nurses) and some children had been ferried out to the ship. I reckoned I could have embarked, by the means available about twice that number in half the time. The need for getting a move on was occasioned by the Jap bombers who came over us 3 times. Fortunately they were not too accurate and we only had 2 killed which we took on board and buried at sea. Nevertheless it was very nerve having to wait about while incompetent Naval officers argued with each other over unnecessary details. I鈥檓 afraid my contacts with Naval and military officers during that period did not inspire me with confidence in the breed 鈥� but of course I may have been unfortunate.

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